Edit Suite: Editing Video Events (page 2)

Here's a better version: (see Figure 2.)
A: The batter connects solidly and heads for first base.
B: CU of passionate fan as her expression changes from suspense to triumph.
C: Batter now standing with one toe on first.
And where, pray tell, did this passionate fan suddenly come from? From your handy-dandy library of cutaways that you so carefully recorded at the game. (Or, if you're a big baseball fan, at several different games. After all, when you're framing the cheering fan, who can tell which play or even which game she's applauding?)
The fan represents one great source of cutaways: spectators. Whether you're at a lecture, a ballet or a stock car race, decide at some point to swing your camcorder away from the action in order to tape the reaction. Get applause, cheers, groans, intent watching, pointing fingers indicating stuff that's out of frame. Widen to capture the crowd cheering hysterically (or throwing rotten vegetables).
And while you're at it, get some generic stuff too: hotdogs getting smothered in mustard , smoochers oblivious of the event in front of them, kids looking shiny-eyed (or maybe being pests). You'll eventually find uses for much of this stuff, and if you don't, hey there's always the next game.
Another good source for cutaways is side action. Back at the rodeo, capture the antics of the cowboy clowns. Better yet, tape them as they swing into action to distract a bronco from stomping a downed rider. For one ride, let the contestant go past while you hold on the guys who open and then close the gate.
Finally, look for spectators who aren't in the stands. At a football or basketball game, the coach is always a natural, pacing up and down, reacting to everything on the field or court, angry, triumphant, agonized. And because many coaches obligingly wear the same topcoat or warmup jacket to every blessed game, build up your repertory of coach cutaways and save them for other contests.

Even when you lack a cutaway or matchable angles, you can still smooth the transitions between shots. DVEs (Digital Video Effects) can get you out of a lot of tight corners.
When you want to downplay the transition, try a fast dissolve maybe a seven to 15 frame cross fade. Used discreetly, a dissolve can soften a bad cut without calling attention to itself.
At other times, however, attention is exactly what you do want; and that's where fancy transitions work best. To string together, say, six great punt returns, separate them with flips, fly-ins or three-D transitions (making sure to use the same or at least similar effects throughout the series). Your gaudy digital displays proclaim, "Hey: this isn't a sequence; it's an anthology!"
And when DVEs don't work, you can cheat. Turn shot A into slow motion and let it play out majestically, before a straight cut to shot B at normal speed. The motion effect will form its own punctuation.
And if a dissolve doesn't work, try a frank still: at the outpoint of shot A, freeze the frame and let it linger a moment before you dissolve to shot B. The result can look very classy.
If all else fails, you can simply change the rules of your program. When you can't edit footage invisibly no matter how hard you try, then be blatant about it: use obvious mismatches to tell your audience that, again, this is an anthology rather than a single sequence.
One last footnote: In most cases, you'll want to continue the main audio under the cutaway, to reinforce the illusion that the inserted shot is happening at the same time. However, you want to avoid a jump cut in your audio. The invisible batter sliding into first is more real if the ecstatic fan cutaway is backed by the roar of 10,000 fans. Didn't record that roar? Well, there are always sound effects, but that's another topic.

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